Cutting AMD/ZMA applicant fees: $1,500 goes away, public pays $395 instead

If you have ever looked at changing the County’s Land Development Regulations or zoning map and balked at the $1,500 application fee, that price tag could shrink to $395. The Planning Commission is set to take up a process change that would eliminate the current $1,500 AMD and ZMA application fee for public proposals and replace it with the existing $395 pre-application conference fee, a net reduction of $1,105 per attempt, per the Planning Commission staff report.

That is real money for regular residents, but it is also real foregone revenue for the County. Staff’s argument is basically: the County will lose $1,500 in fee revenue each time someone proposes an amendment, but it will save far more in taxpayer-funded staff time by only moving forward with proposals that get a green light to proceed. The question I will be watching on June 1 is whether anyone puts a number on that tradeoff. How many public AMDs/ZMAs come in during a typical year, and what does it actually cost staff to process one from start to finish?